Mannerist Theatre of Memory as a World’s Dictionary in the Prose of Zygmunt Haupt

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present a new approach towards the topic of memory in the prose of Zygmunt Haupt (1907−1975). The author was a member of Polish post-war emigration and is being rediscovered now. The interpretation of the text leaves the scheme of nostalgia and “paradise lost” and goes directly to the category of “everythingness”. This method has already been used for the analysis of Haupt’s prose and it focuses on the “dictionary” related to Haupt. The main hypothesis and the starting point of this approach is the assumption that “mannerism” and searching for the ephemeral order in the post-war reality are characteristic features of Haupt’s prose. This method is based on the concept of the “theatre of memory” which has its roots in the mannerist theory of art.